


Caged Birds

by ChokolatteJedi



Series: Caged Birds [2]
Category: Chuck (TV), White Collar (TV 2009)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Fake Character Death, Gen, Government Agencies, Government Conspiracy, Hacking, Neal Caffrey & Bryce Larkin Are Twins, Spies & Secret Agents, The Intersect (Chuck), Twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-29
Updated: 2014-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:46:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28868754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChokolatteJedi/pseuds/ChokolatteJedi
Summary: Caged birds sing of freedom, free birds fly.~ Thorolf Rafto
Series: Caged Birds [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2117112
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	Caged Birds

When Bryce is deep undercover, rooting out Fulcrum, he only communicates with one person besides his handler. He hacks into computer systems around the world and uses them to send a package here; a fax there. They all go to a PO Box under the name Byron Devore at a small shipping annex a mile outside of Neal's radius. June is the only person they trust with the key. When Neal has something to say in reply he convinces Mozzie to put out an encrypted post on his usual message boards. Mozzie is never told who the messages are for, only that they must always include the words "speckled with clouds."

Twice, Bryce's mission takes him to New York. Each time Neal receives a postcard of the city skyline beforehand, as a warning to keep his apartment bug- and Fed-free for a while. On both occasions June takes pictures — the only ones they have of themselves together.

When Peter accuses Neal of stealing the treasure and Mozzie disappears for a week, Neal is forced to call in a favor to send the messages he needs. Using the cook's phone, Neal dials the number he was told to memorize and only use in the direst of emergencies. Chuck almost cries when he hears Neal's voice, makes a strangled gasp when he hears his name, and then eagerly agrees to post whatever message Neal wants. Bryce isn't able to come himself, but an app for a hacked video feed soon appears on Neal's laptop.

When Bryce is killed in action again, Neal refuses to believe it, no matter what Chuck's email says. Three months later his belief is rewarded again.

When a certain FBI agent from DC starts snooping around Neal, he is mysteriously distracted by a sudden OPR audit of his entire department. When Neal's commutation is derailed anyway, Bryce gets so pissed off he programs a virus that takes the FBI's systems offline for two weeks. Cybercrime has no leads, and would find the timing suspicious if it weren't for the fact that Neal Caffrey is known to be hopeless with computers.

It takes Bryce several months to realize that there is a damaged Intersect lurking in his brain. The system is supposed to have been fried, but that doesn't stop him. In the end, Bryce calls in a favor from Chuck, Neal calls in a favor from Mozzie, and between the Vulture, the Piranha, and the Jaguar, they accomplish it. The Jaguar nickname is Neal's contribution: he insists on making constant cat references to allude to Bryce's nine lives. Bryce knows that it's a coping mechanism and doesn't complain.

By using a backdoor into a backup hard drive's deletion buffer, they finally find the surveillance tapes of the Intersect 2.0 room. It is bizarre to watch himself die, but his open, staring eyes finally fill in the blanks. It takes Bryce the better part of a year to program an upgrade that makes up for the deficit between his and Chuck's Intersects, a product of his occurring mid-death. When he is finally able to call upon it at will, he finds the files on Project Gemini, a plan to — using Neal — lure Bryce into the open, trap him in his own cell, and force him to build better Intersects.

The name isn't exactly subtle: Gemini is another word for the mythological Greek twins, Castor and Pollux. Twins with different fathers, Pollux offered to share his immortality with his mortal brother so that they were not separated in death. Neal thinks that the CIA has it wrong: that he is the mortal — Criminal — Castor, _destroying_ Bryce's immortality. Bryce thinks the who-is-who question varies from day to day.

The third time, Bryce warns Neal before he dies.

When Neal tells Chuck that Bryce is dead, Chuck just gives his own mangled version of "fool me once", and insists that he will never believe Bryce is dead until Chuck has died himself and they meet in the afterlife. Neal tries to share his confidence, but a lifetime of trust issues makes it hard for him to believe without proof. When Neal tells him the story, Bryce wonders if Chuck has found out about Project Gemini on his own — the name isn't exactly subtle.

When it becomes apparent that the FBI refuses to let Neal go when his time is up, — _"too invaluable as an asset to just let him walk away"_ , says the files he hacks into — Bryce comes to the rescue again. He didn't spend the last year breaking free from his own federal agency just to lose his brother to another one. After all this time, Bryce is an expert at faking a death, and doing Neal's instead of his own is only a minor deviation from the norm.

Bryce and Neal are twenty-nine when they arrive in Paris for the third and fourth times, respectively. It is the first time since they were two that they are both together and _free_.


End file.
